• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Chaos Out of Order: The Rise and Fall of the Swedenborgian Rite BY BRO. R. A. GILBERT (AQC Vol 108 1995) Swedenborg: The Man and His Work One thing is certain: Swedenborg himself had nothing to do with it – neither with the late 18th century Rite that has come to bear his name, nor with its bizarre successor that is the subject of this paper. But in order to understand that Rite it is essential to know something of the man, of his work and of the religious movement that grew out of it. Emanuel Swedenborg was born at Stockholm in 1688, the son of Jasper Swedberg. at that time a Professor of theology at Uppsala university and later, from 1702, Bishop of Skara (The name was changed when the family was ennobled in 1719). From 1716 to 1747 Swedenborg was an Assessor in the Royal College of Mines of Sweden, but he was more than simply a metallurgist and mining engineer. By any standard Swedenborg was a polymath: fascinated equally by the natural world and by human invention he not wrote learned treatises on every aspect of the physical and natural sciences, and on currency and economics, but also designed mechanical devices as diverse as a fire-engine, machine-gun, flying-machine and submarine. But in 1744 there came a turning point in his life. He had for some years been attempting to demonstrate through his scientific studies that there was a spiritual underpinning of the material universe – an attempt that culminated in a spiritual crisis when he felt that ‘That there was a change of state in me into the heavenly kingdom, in an image’1[1]. This he believed enabled him to hold conversations with angels, to receive divine revelations as to the true meaning of the Scriptures, and to undertake a divine 1[1] ‘ For Swedenborg’s life see: C. O. Sigstedt, The Smedenborg Epic. The Life and Works of Emmanuel Swedenborg. London, 1981 (Reprint) p. 216; Robin Larsen (Ed.), Emonael Scoedenborg. A Coetinuing Vision. New York, 1988; and R. L. Tafel, Documenrs concerning the Life and Character of Emmanuel Saedenborg, collected, translated and annotated. London, 1875. commission to publish the ‘Heavenly Doctrines’ revealed to him and to make known to mankind that the Second Coming would soon take place, in 1770, and the New Jerusalem be established in the spiritual world. For the next twenty-five years until his death in London in 1772, he was the complete theologian, writing extensively and assiduously to expound and defend his doctrines2[2]. His works attracted a small but enthusiastic following and some years after his death their activities were crystallised in the form of the New Jerusalem Church, a denomination that has survived to the present day, although it has remained a small body with a worldwide membership of some 25,000. Swedenborg’s ideas, however have had a greater effect the secular world, influencing individuals as diverse as Blake, Balzac, Emerson, Yeats, and D. T. Suzuki. A detailed discussion of those ideas, and of Swedenborgian theology in general is beyond the scope of this paper but certain aspects must be noted in order to make sence of the Swedenborgian Rite. For Swedenborg the physical world is the result of spiritual causes, and the laws of nature are reflections of spiritual laws; thus objects and even the material world are images of their spiritual counterparts. This is his doctrine of ‘correspondences’. From this derives the other notion that concerns us: the idea behind the literal, historical meaning of the scriptures is an inner, spiritual sense – which sense is drawn out for all to see in Swedenborg’s expository works. And it was a fascination with those expository works that led to the first creation of a masonic Rite of Swedenborg. THE FIRST RITE OF SWEDENBORG If any of the many 18th century manufacturers of Rites and Degrees deserves the title of creator of the ‘Swedenborgian Rite’ it is Dom Antoine Joseph Pernety (1716 – 1796). At the age of fifty Pernety left the Benedictine Order and settled at Avignon where he redirected his alchemical enthusiasm into masonic channels and allegedly created a ‘Rite Hermetique’ that reflected his interests. From 2[2] ‘Swedenborg’s principal theological works are Arcana Coekstia, his commentary on the Books of Genesis and Exodus, published at London between 1749 and 1756; and Vera Chrisriana Religio, his principal dogmatic work, published at Amsterdam in 1771. All of his works have been translated into English. The most noticeable differences between Swedenborg’s system and most other expositions of Christian theology are over the doctrines of the Trinity and Vicarious Atonement. Swedenborg also denied the divine inspiration of all of the canonical Scriptures, rejecting the Poetical Books in the Old Testament and the Epistles in the New. Avignon he moved to Berlin where he became librarian to Frederick the Great and began to translate the works of Swedenborg into French3[3]. Here he met a Polish Count, Thaddeus Leszczy Grabianka (1740 – 1807), who was equally enthused with Swedenborgian doctrines. When Pernety returned to Avignon in 1784 Grabianka followed (after a visit to the Swedenborgians in London) and in 1786 they founded the Societe des Illumines d’Avignon. Precisely what this band of visionaries believed and taught is unclear; their doctrines have been described as a blend of Swedenborgianism and Roman Catholicism, salted with occultism. To the cold intellectualism of the Swedish visionary was added the veneration of the Virgin Mary and recital of the Athanasian creed; while individual members studied Renaiss-ance alchemy, the theurgy of Alexandria, hermetic authors, the philosopher’s stone, the divine science of numbers, and the mystical interpretation of dreams4[4]. Even less is known of the rituals they practised, but when two English Swedenborgians, William Bryan and John Wright, visited the Society in 1789, ‘they were finally initiated into the mysteries of their order’, after ‘a certain process of examination, probation, and injunction of secresy’5[5]. Subsequently they were most solemnly introduced to what was called the actual and personal presence of the Lord; which, it appears, was effected by the agency of a comely and majestic young man, arrayed in purple garments, seated on a kind of throne or chair of state, in an inner apartment decorated with heavenly emblems6[6]. 3[3] ’Pernety translated Les Mereeilks du Ciel et de l’Enfer. Berlin, 1782, 1786; and La Sagesse Angelique sur l’Amour Diein, et sur la Sagesse Divine. Berlin, 1786. For Pernety’s life, see Joanny Bricaud, Les Illumines d’Avignon, etude sur Dom Pernety et son Groupe. Paris, 1927. 4[4] J. F. C. Harrison, The Second Coming. Popular Millenarianism 1780 – 1850. London, 1979, p. 70. 5[5] R. Hindmarsh, Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church in England, America, and other Parts. London, 1861 p. 48. 6[6] ibid. p. 48 Neither Bryan nor Wright was familiar with Freemasonry and their account may have been a garbled perception of the exotic trimmings that tended to accompany most of the ‘hauts grades’ of the time. These bizarre activities of the Illumines d’Avignon came to an end with the upheavals of the French Revolution, but although English Swedenborgians in general had been hostile to them this was because of their perceived blasphemy, not because of any hostility to Freemasonry per se: Benedict Chastanier, for example, was not only a leading light of the Swedenborgians of the 1780s but also a most active mason. Their teacher, however, was not. SWEDENBORG AND FREEMASONRY It is unusual to find such diverse authorities as A. E. Waite, the Revd. A. F. A. Woodford, and H. W. Coil agreeing on matters of masonic history, but on this issue they are at one. Woodford states bluntly, ‘we deny that Swedenborg was a Freemason’; while Coil is equally positive: ‘Swedenborg was not a Freemason and at no time, had any connection with or gave any attention to the Society’. Waite, for once, is both clear and concise on the question: ‘[Swedenborg] connects with Masonry only in a mythical sense. There is not the least reason to suppose that he belonged to the Order’7[7]. A detailed refutation of claims to the contrary is give by R. L. Tafel in his Documents concerning the Life and Character of Emmanuel Swedenborg, (1875), Vol. 2, pp. 735 – 739, and the only contemporary scholar to argue in favour of Swedenborg having been a freemason, Dr. Marsha Schuchard, has yet to produce any satisfactory evidence8[8]. But non-membership of the Craft does not imply the absence of a relationship of some kind: the episode of the Illumines d’Avignon is clear evidence that Swedenborg had an influence upon Freemasonry, albeit unknown to himself; or, in Mackey’s words: ‘it was the Freemasons of the advanced degrees who borrowed from Swedenborg, and not Swedenborg from them9[9]. 7[7] A. F. A. Woodford (Ed.), Kenning’s Masonic Cyclopaedia. London, 1878 p. 607; H. W. Coil, Coil’s Masonic Encyclopaedia. New York, 1961; A. E. Waite, A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry. London, 1921, Vol. 2, p. 446. 8[8] M. K. M. Schuchard, Freemasonry, Secret Societies, and the continuity of the Occult Traditions in English Literature. Ann Arbor, 1982 (Facsimile of doctoral dissertation, 1975) Dr. Schuchard has subsequently written numerous other papers on similar topics 9[9] A. G. Mackey, Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry. New edition revised and enlarged by W. J. Hughan and E. L. Hawkins. New York, 1929 p. 997 It would, however, be the best part of a century before they borrowed again. In the interim those Swedenborgians who were drawn to Freemasonry were quite content with the Craft degrees10[10].

Load more

  33

Copy Link